Smile!

Feeling like your Mommy is looking too run-down and serious lately?  Want to put a smile on her face?  Why, it's as simple as taking your fingers and manually forcing the skin on her face to push her lips upwards into a big old happy smile!  Take it from the expert:





Bam!  Insta-Smile!

You may wonder why Madeleine was so intent on making me smile.

ME: Madeleine, why are you insisting I smile?
MADELEINE: Because you look so SAD, and I keep BURPING so you're feeling sad that I'm burping so much.
ME: I am?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  Every time I burp you're like, "(Sigh) Oh, Madeleine."
ME: Well, you do an awful lot of gross ginormous burps, that's true.

She seriously does.  Big, loud, frat-boy, reverberating burps.  I didn't think I was acting sad over them, though. I'm kind of just impervious to them by this point, since they happen all the time.

As she got into bed tonight, Madeleine scrambled for a last-minute sip of water from the water bottle on her bedroom floor.

MADELEINE: (gulping down water, then taking the water bottle out of her mouth, releasing an airy sound) Mommy...that was NOT me burping.  It was just my water bottle.
ME: It's okay, I know.  Honey, you know that I'm never mad at you for burping, don't you?  Even if it seems like I'm sighing about it, I would never be mad at you if you burp.  You can't help it.
MADELEINE: Well...I *can* help it...I kind of push them out on purpose.
ME: Oh. Well, then maybe you can try not doing that.
MADELEINE: (aghast) But I *love* burping!!


Of course she does.  And who am I to take that away from her??